Long-fingered African frog rediscovered after 62 years

A single specimen of the Bururi long-fingered frog has been discovered by herpetologists from the California Academy of Sciences and the University of Texas at El Paso. The researchers discovered the Bururi frog while on a research expedition to Burundi in December 2011. This frog had been considered long since extinct, as the last time it had been seen by scientists was in 1949. Burundi is a place of interest for biologists who study the evolution and distribution of life in Africa. Sitting at a crossroads between the Congo River Basin, the Great Rift Valley and the world's second largest freshwater lake, Lake Tanganyika, Burundi provides these biologists with plenty of insights into how life began and how it has traveled. Political unrest, population growth and habitat loss however, has kept researchers and biologists from being able to closely study Burundi and its rich evolutionary history. Today, Burundi has one of the highest population densities in Africa with approximately 10 million people living in